The initial launch of the PlayStation Vita handheld in Japan has been a bit rocky. Reports of a number of software issues, as well as system lockups and touchscreen freezes, seem to be the order of the day. Japanese buyers are not happy and are venting their displeasure on social media sites.

Sony is watching, and they have already issued a firmware update to address the issues and they are apparently preparing to issue an apology letter, as well, according to rumors. It is unclear why some of these issues were not resolved before the unit shipped, but at least Sony is trying hard to stay on top of the issues and get them resolved.

The good news for North American and European buyers is that we suspect that most of the issues will be sorted out before its release in those regions next year. That is the best news of all if you happen to live in one of these regions and are planning to buy a Vita.

Japanese semiconductor outfit Rohm has built a chip and antenna that can transmitting 1.5Gbps and should be able to manage 30Gbps soon. The fastest 802.11 (WiFi) transmission speeds can only manage a limp 150Mbps, and the incoming WiGig standard peaks at 7Gbps.

What the boffins think is significant is that the Rohm has managed to set up the reception and transmission of terahertz waves (300GHz to 3THz) using a chip and antenna that’s just two centimeters long. It will only cost $5 to make when it comes market in a few years. Current terahertz-level gear is large, expensive, and only capable of data rates of 100Mbps.

Sadly it is not going to replace standard 2 and 5Ghz home networks, since it is such a high frequency it has to be directional to within a millimetre. Terahertz signals also fall prey to atmospheric radiation.

A tiny Japanese robot is going to enter Hawaii's grueling Ironman Triathlon course. Fitted with three different bodies and three rechargeable batteries, the hand-sized "Evolta" will swim, bicycle and run its way through one of the world's toughest triathlon routes.

The robot is made by Panasonic and will have to swim, run and bike for a total of approximately 230 km. The time given to complete the task is a week or 168 hours, which is ten times longer than it would take a sportsman.

To be fair Evolta is a tenth of a grown man so it will seem an even bigger job. The batteries the robot bears on its back, which go on sale in Japan on Oct 21, can be recharged up to 1,800 times by being placed on a recharger pad.

The triathlon challenge begins on Oct 24 and will continue non-stop for seven days and nights. The actual Ironman World Championship takes place in early October.

In the lead up to the competition Evolta has also walked the 500 km from Tokyo to the old Japanese capital of Kyoto.

Japanese publishers are pulling the plug on several major releases in the wake of the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan. Sega will be delaying the release of Yakuza: Of The End, and Sony will be likewise be delaying the release of MotorStorm Apocalypse. Irem has just canceled the release of Disaster Report 4 with no additional information available at this time.

As for Sega, the release of Yakuza: Of The End in Japan has been pushed back to be announced (TBA) at a later date. Yakuza: Of the End was slated for release in Japan only. MotorStorm Apocalypse, to be released by Sony, also now has a TBA date for Japan; but we are under the impression from our sources that its release in other regions will move forward.

Both of these titles from Sega and Sony were slated for Japanese release on March 17th. Whispers that we hear indicate that both companies still plan to release these titles in Japan at some point in the future.

A Japanese boffin calculated the value of Pi to five trillion using a homemade computer. Shigeru Kondo, 55, who works as systems engineer for a food company based in northern Japan, broke the earlier record of 2.7 trillion digits that was established late last year.

According to the Kyodo news agency the gargantuan calculation was nearly blown when his daughter tripped a circuit breaker after a hair dryer was turned on. Fortunately the computer switched to an 10-minute back-up power source.

The homemade computer cost 13,000 euros to make and has a hard-drive capacity of 32 terabytes.The engineer now aims to try and compute the value of Pi to 10 trillion digits. His wife Yukiko, though, is not too happy as the computer sent their electricity bill through the roof.

We are not sure what he actually achieved other than 15 minutes of fame.